1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data processing systems and in particular to search engines. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for dynamic modification of advertisements displayed in response to a search engine query.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet contains a large number of websites. When a user wants to locate a website containing specific content, but the user does not know which website to visit, the user typically uses a search engine. A search engine is a software program which indexes websites based on the content of each website and provides an interface in which the user can use to search the index and find websites with specific content. For example, a user may enter one or more keywords, and the search engine will return a list of all websites having content containing the specified keywords.
When a user performs a query using an Internet search engine, the search engine generates revenue for the owner of the search engine by displaying advertisements next to the results of the search engine query. The results of a search engine query are based on the keywords used in the search. Similarly, the advertisements which are displayed next to the search engine results are also based on the keywords used in the search.
When a user enters a keyword which has more than one meaning, the search engine returns search results which display websites having content related to each different meaning of the keyword. The search engine also displays advertisements corresponding to each different meaning of the keyword. Currently, when a keyword in a search engine query has more than one meaning, the advertisements displayed in response to the search engine query are not tailored to the meaning of the keyword which interests the user.